Reno County officials updated on damages from last week's storms

John Green

Thursday

May 16, 2019 at 11:41 AMMay 17, 2019 at 9:04 AM

Storms that swept through Reno County on May 5 spawned two tornadoes rated as EF0s, and one or two EF1s, Reno County Emergency Management Director Adam Weishaar reported to the Reno County Commission this week.

The two smaller funnels came down in open fields south of Crupper’s Corner and caused no damage.

The larger ones, which touched down on a path along Centennial Road between 30th and 82nd avenues, caused minor damage to three homes and destroyed several outbuildings, but there were no injuries. Officials had no damage estimates.

Another round of storms that popped up the next night also generated some rotation, but no tornadoes. That storm did bring with it heavy rain, the first of several rain-dense systems that moved through over the next several days.

Torrential rains on May 7 led to at least one water rescue by firefighters at 23rd and Severance about 11:30 p.m., and cars abandoned around town with flooded engines, Weishaar said.

Flash floods occurred across a large swath of Reno County the morning of May 8, resulting in the closure of roads in both the city and county and two more water rescues in the county.

Officials began to look at creek and river levels and determined they’d be close to last October’s near-record floods in parts of the county, prompting the request of a local disaster declaration.

Road conditions

While officials closed segments of nearly 50 roads due to flooding during the week, and the county put another 78 “high water” signs out, the flooding was not as severe as anticipated, Weishaar said, so the Emergency Operations Center did not stay open beyond 10 p.m. that night.

“If the road has water across it, but we can still see the white line, we’ll put a high water sign,” Reno County Public Works Superintendent Don Brittain explained to the commission. “When it gets to where we can’t see the center line or, depending on how fast the water is going across it, we’ll close it. We closed 18 blacktops roads, and that’s a lot.”

Sometimes their biggest challenge, besides the quickly changing conditions, is that people ignore the barricades or move them.

“We had crews out cleaning off 56th Avenue, and people were still going around the barricades and going around our equipment,” he said, noting some “high water” signs were even stolen.

“Our people do a good job monitoring and getting roads closed,” Brittain said. “Unfortunately, people go around the barricades, and sooner or later there’s going to be a tragedy.”

On Thursday and Friday, Emergency Management attempted to post hourly updates on road closings on Facebook, Weishaar said, but the changing conditions made it challenging to keep up with.

The agency also attempted to post a map showing closed roads, but the Facebook blocked the effort as spam, he advised the commission. They’re looking for a workaround in advance of the next storm system, which could move through this weekend.

Still closed

As of Thursday, 22 county roads remained closed, preventing county public works and township officials from determining if any of them are damaged or how severely. However, none of the 18 county blacktops closed during the event remained closed, Brittain said, only township roads.

The county did close two bridges due to damages, on Woodberry Road north of 30th and McNew Road, a quarter mile north of K-96. Crews already repaired and reopened the 40-foot Woodberry bridge, but the 60-foot McNew bridge will have to be rebuilt, Brittain said.

By declaring a local disaster, since the state also announced a flooding disaster, the county and townships could qualify for 75 percent reimbursement for its emergency response costs and storm damage repairs to roads and bridges.

The county and state will likely exceed the threshold needed for assistance, Weishaar said, adding that road damage does not have to meet any minimum threshold, so support is almost certainly there.

Officials have six weeks to document damage and costs, Weishaar said. The disaster declaration was allowed to expire on Wednesday.

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